


how to fall through the cracks

by doctorkaitlyn



Series: better the devil you know... [1]
Category: Wolverine (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Bars and Pubs, Blackouts, Consent Issues, Drunk Sex, Heavy Drinking, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Manipulation, Memory Loss, One Night Stands, Pre-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 17:03:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10723521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: “Who the fuck are you?” he snaps.The man grins wide, almostleers, and leans forward, dropping his hands between his spread knees. A gold tooth glints in his mouth, and Logan finds himself struck with the urge to tear it out at the root.“You know,” he says, huffing out an amused laugh that only furthers Logan’s urge to grab him by the throat and smash his face off the dashboard, “I had a feeling you were gonna say that.”(or, Pierce and Logan have met before, in an El Paso bar in the early hours of the morning. Logan just doesn't remember.)





	how to fall through the cracks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dansunedisco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dansunedisco/gifts).



> the working title of this was literally "bad wrong trash ship," so trust me, I know. stay tuned for the sequel/companion fic from Pierce's perspective, also known as the fic where sad and bad people continue to be sad and bad.
> 
> a note on the consent issues: Logan does consent to the implied sexual content, but he's heavily intoxicated, while Pierce is not. let me know if there's any other tags that you believe I should add. 
> 
> dialogue in the last section is taken straight from the movie.

On a normal night, three o’clock is the perfect time for Logan to stumble into a bar. By that time, most of the people who wandered out looking to get drunk and have a good time have stumbled off to have one-night stands or go sleep it off in their car. The crowds of screaming bridesmaids and fist-pumping fraternity brothers, the ones that Logan spends so much time chauffeuring around, have left the bars in favor of private parties or hotel rooms, which means that usually the only people left on the bar stools are the habitual drinkers, the ones stuck in their routines who stay quiet and stare at the television above the bar as they slowly get completely and utterly trashed. 

They recognize him as one of their own, and because of that, they don’t talk to him.

Logan appreciates the silence. 

But on Halloween, all of that, all of the observations Logan has made since starting work in El Paso, fly completely out the window. 

Just after two-thirty, he drops off a gaggle of drunken men, a bachelor party, at a strip club downtown, and turns off his phone so that he isn’t alerted of any more fares. There’s a bar nearby that’s usually not bad at this time of night and has ample parking for the limo, so he drives in that direction through streets crowded with cars and revelers, people drunk off their ass in masks and homemade costumes. 

He almost hits a dozen of them and wonders if it would really be a loss if he did. 

He barely pauses in the street outside the bar before he realizes that it’s been invaded. The parking lot is full, and vehicles are spilling out onto the street. Small groups of people mingle outside, smoking cigarettes and passing bottles back and forth, yelling in the way that signifies they’re drunk and personable and probably willing to strike up a conversation with anyone who walks by. 

He puts his foot to the gas, leaves the bar in the rear-view, and takes a deep swig from the bottle of whiskey resting between his legs. 

The second place he drives to is just as bad. As is the third. By the time he makes it to the fourth, a dumpy dive on the outskirts of the city out towards the freeway, the bottle is empty, and he’s starting to think about pulling over to the side of the road and raiding the minibar in the back, passing out on the floor until the sun starts streaming in.

But the fourth time turns out to be the charm. The parking lot is still busier than normal, but the vehicles are different, aren’t as sleek and expensive; there’s a lot of trucks that have seen better days, some cars riddled with dents and faded bumper stickers that might be decades old. There are still some people lingering in the lot, but they’re quieter, standing alone and not acknowledging each other, clutching cigarettes like life preservers. 

He backs the limo up at the side of the lot, until it’s snug against the chain link fence that separates the bar from the strip mall next door, and slides out. The pain in his knee spikes when he stands up, hasn’t been muffled at all by the booze he’s consumed tonight, which means he just needs to get more into him as soon as possible. He limps across the uneven tarmac, passes through the smoke of half a dozen cigarettes, and pushes open the door leading into the bar. 

The place is small, smaller by far than the bars in the middle of the city, the ones who cater to rich people with too much damn money to blow on neon bright cocktails. There’s just over half a dozen booths lining the right wall, leading to the flickering relic of a jukebox and a bathroom. There are a few more booths on Logan’s immediate left, just beside the front entrance. The bar fills the rest of the left side of the room, covers the entire wall and bulges out in the middle. Twin televisions bolted to the ceiling are broadcasting a football game that has to be a few hours old, maybe even days at this point. 

The room reeks of spilled booze and old sweat from the bodies packed into it. There’s a low hum of chatter permeating the air, but most of the occupants are silent, staring into their respective glasses or at the television. There’s a space available at the bar, front and center, and Logan crosses the room as fast as his leg will let him, snatching the stool up before someone else challenges him for it. 

He orders a whiskey and throws it back as soon as it touches the pitted surface of the bar. Orders another and does the same after telling the bartender to start a tab. 

After the fourth glass, the bartender simply presses a bottle into his hand before walking off to attend to someone else’s needs. 

By the time he’s drained half of the bottle, the pain in his knee has faded slightly. His vision has faded along with it; the labels of the rows and rows of bottles on the other side of the bar are difficult to make out. When he glances up at the television nearest him, he has to squint his eyes into slits just to make out the score. 

Not that the score is that important. He was never one for football. 

As the minutes tick by, the bar grows quieter as the patrons slink out into the last dregs of night and the first bits of morning. The stools on either side of Logan have been empty for some time, so when someone slides into the one on his left, he can’t help but glance sideways, wonder who the hell has sat down beside him when the room is nearly free for the taking. 

The first thing he notices is the gold tooth glinting underneath the lights marching above the bar. It’s just about the tackiest looking thing he’s ever seen, and he snorts as he takes another deep swig from the bottle. The rest of the guy is almost as absurd, from the round sunglasses that look like they were chipped from old headlights to the heavy olive coat and gold chain draped around his neck, resting above a black ink tattoo of a skull and crossbones. 

“What in the fuck are you supposed to be dressed up as?” Logan asks. The guy laughs and raises two gloved fingers, gesturing the bartender over. 

“Donald,” he drawls, accent thick as syrup, pausing to order a beer from the bartender. “Or, should I say, I’m dressed as myself.” 

Logan snorts again. 

“You a Don or a Donnie kind of guy?” he asks, taking another swig from the bottle. He barely feels the liquid burn down his throat. 

“Neither. Not unless you wanna leave here with some of your teeth missin’.” The threat is accompanied by a grin that puts that damn tooth front and center. “Most people just call me Pierce. What do they call you?” 

It’s quite possibly Logan’s least favorite question. 

“Logan,” he mutters, turning his attention back to the line of bottles across from him. Pierce makes a sound in the back of his throat, a deep _hmm_ , and Logan can feel him still staring at him from behind his ugly sunglasses. 

“Well, Logan,” he replies, wrapping his leather-clad fingers around his bottle and tipping it back. Logan doesn’t mean to look, but his eyes flick that way anyways, track to the bob of Pierce’s throat, the shifting of the ink scarring it as he swallows half the bottle before dropping it back down. “It looks like that bottle of yours is comin’ up on empty. I’m sure you came here to get some peace and quiet, but if you’re amenable on sharing the next one, I’m willing to pay.” He rummages around in an interior pocket of his jacket before he pulls out a handful of bills, each of them in pristine condition, freshly coughed up from the depths of an ATM. 

Logan may not be able to see straight, may be able to feel the amount of whiskey he’s drank sloshing in his gut, but he’s more than capable of paying for his own drinks, and an offer like this always comes with another kind of price. 

“Yeah? What the fuck’s the catch?” he asks, tightening his fingers on the body of his bottle, ready to smash it across Pierce’s sharp-featured face if need be. 

“No catch.” Pierce shrugs his shoulders and lays out three of the bills on the bar, pushes them to the edge so that they’ll attract the bartender’s attention. “Just feel like doin’ my good deed for the day. Besides, pretty sure you’ve got the weight advantage on me, if you were afraid I was gonna try something funny.”

It’s a good point. Pierce isn’t small, has broad enough shoulders and long enough legs, but he certainly isn’t Logan’s size. Even three sheets to the wind, Logan has a feeling he could take him. If the guy genuinely wants to give him free booze out of the kindness of his heart, or whatever bullshit excuse he has, Logan won’t question him. 

But that doesn’t mean he’s letting his guard down anytime soon. 

“Fine,” he says, taking up his own bottle again. There’s about a quarter of it left, and he wraps his mouth around the stem and swallows until it contains nothing more than droplets. When he places it back on the bar, the bottle cracks. A single line climbs the glass, from the bottom up through the label to the top. 

Thankfully, it doesn’t shatter. 

“Don’t know your own strength,” Pierce mutters, just as the bartender takes his bills and exchanges them for another bottle of whiskey. He’s taken his sunglasses off, tucked them into a pocket presumably, and his eyes are very blue, the blue of a expansive desert sky. 

“Or it was just a shitty bottle,” Logan retorts, grabbing the new bottle and twisting the cap off. He just barely remembers to pour it into his long-abandoned glass, rather than swig it straight. It’s a different whiskey, more spiced than the last one, stings against his tongue.

It tastes expensive. 

“My favorite kind,” Pierce says, pouring three fingers worth into his own, newly acquired, glass. “Don’t get much of it where I’m from, though.” 

Logan thinks about asking where that is, but after a moment of thought, decides that he doesn’t care enough. 

“It’s not bad,” he says instead before going back to drinking it. 

He drains the glass before Pierce even touches his. 

&.

By the time they stumble outside, it’s nearly time for the sun to come up, Logan’s seeing double, and he can’t remember the conversation that precipitated their move outside. 

The parking lot is empty of people and nearly empty of cars. The blue-black sky is starting to turn navy at the edges of the horizon, and in only a few hours, Logan will have to make his way back across the border, to Charles and Caliban. He should try to grab a few hours of sleep before that, try to sleep off some of the booze that he’s soaked up like a sponge. 

He should tell Pierce, whose shoulder keeps bumping against his, who won’t stop pressing the tip of his tongue to that damn gold tooth every time he opens his mouth, to fuck off. 

Instead, as he tries to keep upright, feet dragging along like they’re shuffling through freshly poured cement, he yanks his keys from the pocket of his pants and presses the unlock button. 

“A limo,” Pierce says, punctuating the word with a long, low whistle. “As I live and breathe. Didn’t expect your ride to be so fancy.” 

“Wouldn’t call it that,” Logan mutters, bypassing the front of the car in favor of the back door. He tugs it open hard enough for the body of the car to creak ominously, and he stoops to slide inside, nearly smashes his head in the process. Once he falls onto the seat, he slides over, until he’s against the opposite side. Pierce joins him, pulls the door closed with a bang that seems to echo in Logan’s head. 

“Fancy enough,” he replies, settling back against the faux-leather seats, an appreciative sigh falling from his mouth. “If I’d known you were driving a limo, I would have asked if you wanted to step outside a lot earlier.” 

Logan doesn’t answer. He doesn’t remember Pierce asking him that. He remembers Pierce twisting on his stool to face him, remembers him leaning in close enough for Logan to see the darker flecks of blue in his eyes. He remembers Pierce’s mouth opening, remembers that damn tooth glinting under the lights as he smiled. 

But the memory of Pierce actually _asking_ him outside is non-existent. 

“Everything alright?” Pierce asks, sliding closer, until their knees are knocking together. 

Logan’s having a difficult time putting his thoughts together, connecting the pieces together to form something tangible, something that makes sense, but he knows that he shouldn’t be doing this. Being with people never ends well for him, never ends well for _them_ , even the one-night stands, and frankly, while Pierce is far from ugly (once you peer past the tackiness), Logan isn’t sure if the state he's in will let him get it up. 

At least his various aches and pains have quieted, for the time being.

“You really think this is a good idea?” he asks, pushing the heels of his palms into his eyes. Even in the dark interior of the limo, the low ceiling seems to be swaying slightly. 

Pierce shrugs his coat off, and Logan hears a rustling as it falls to the floor, leaving Pierce in a black tank top that reveals corded forearms and muscled shoulders. 

“I’ve had worse in my time,” he replies. More rustling fills the space, followed by a thud as Pierce’s knees hit the floor of the limo. His hands, still wrapped up in leather gloves, settle just above Logan’s knees. In the unsteady orange glow being thrown by the nearby streetlight, Logan can see Pierce staring up at him, one eyebrow raised, the tattoo at the base of his neck black as an oil slick. “You say the word, and I stop. Easy as that.” 

His fingers creep higher. 

Logan takes a few more seconds to consider whether or not this is the worst idea he’s ever had. 

Eventually, he decides that it isn’t, not by a long shot, and he reaches down, wraps his scarred knuckles around the back of Pierce’s neck, underneath the straight line of his short hair. 

“Get up here first,” he says, stretching his legs out so that the pain doesn’t settle back into his bones and joints. “You’re not gonna have much luck if you start down there.” 

Pierce grins and slides his hands the rest of the way up Logan’s thighs, drops them down to the seat on either side of him and, moments later, replaces them with his knees. He has to stoop his head to avoid smashing it on the roof, which works just fine for Logan, because it means he won’t have to move any to press his mouth against Pierce’s. 

“Alright,” Pierce says, voice low. His breath is warm with the ghost of whiskey. The fingers of one gloved hand pass through the thick beard covering Logan’s jaw and cheek before continuing back into his hair and twisting their way in. “I can work with this.” 

“Good,” Logan says, shutting his eyes so that the room will stop spinning. “Now shut the fuck up.” 

&.

Logan wakes up face-down on the floor. 

It’s broad daylight outside, and the interior of the limo is filled with sweltering, suffocating heat. When he sucks in a deep breath, he nearly chokes on how dry his throat is. He can smell booze, presumably all over his clothes. He sits up slowly, but not slowly enough to avoid the pounding in his head. His knee aches, but not as bad as normal, which means there must still be alcohol floating around his system. 

He slowly manages to crawl up onto the seat and glance out the window. He’s still in the bar’s parking lot, which is a good sign, although he doesn’t remember how he managed to get back into the limo. 

After taking a moment to catalog his memories, he comes to the realization that there’s not a lot about the previous night that he can remember, not after he’d dropped off his last fare at the strip club. It’s all just blurs of movement and colors. 

He must have drank the bar dry. 

As he slides over towards the door, he stops in his tracks. There’s another smell in the air, unfamiliar, almost hidden underneath that of booze and his own sweat. 

Cologne. 

He has no idea what the story behind that is and, as he pushes open the door and squints in the unduly harsh Texas sun, he decides that he doesn’t want to know.

&.

The bag containing Charles’ medication feels heavier than it ought to in Logan’s hand, like it’s packed full of stones rather than a bottle of pills that won’t last long enough. 

They never last long enough. 

He tosses the package onto the passenger seat, contents rattling, and grabs the half-full bottle of whiskey resting in the footwell. The glass is warm, uncomfortably so, and when he swigs it back, it burns down his throat, all the way to his gut. 

Before he can swallow more, the back door of the limo opens, and Logan twists around in time to see a man slide inside, perching himself on the seat with his hands (one gloved, the other not) clasped in his lap. Even though it’s raining outside, has been raining for hours, he’s wearing a pair of round sunglasses that look like a relic from the 1960s and a heavy duster coat that looks designed for the sole purpose of concealing weaponry. Stray droplets of rain water are glinting in the bristles of dark blonde hair above his upper lip and along the line of his jaw. Logan can just make out a patch of black ink at the base of the man’s throat, above the open collar of his shirt, but he can’t make out the details of the tattoo. 

He tightens his fingers on the steering wheel, knuckles aching.

“As I live and breathe,” the man says with a drawling, rolling accent that makes Logan think of old movies set on plantations, “the Wolverine.” It sounds mocking, like there’s some kind of joke in the words that Logan isn’t catching. “And he’s a _junkie_.” 

The ache in Logan’s knuckles upgrades to a steady, pulsing throb. 

“Who the fuck are you?” he snaps. 

The man grins wide, almost _leers_ , and leans forward, dropping his hands between his spread knees. A gold tooth glints in his mouth, and Logan finds himself struck with the urge to tear it out at the root. 

“You know,” he says, huffing out an amused laugh that only furthers Logan’s urge to grab him by the throat and smash his face off the dashboard, “I had a feeling you were gonna say that.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
